We left Perth on 30 July for 23 days and flew with AP and went straight to the Gazebo Hotel Sanur, stayed 1 night and then flew to Lombok, stayed 2 nights at Sheraton and then chartered a small boat and went to Gili Traw. Stayed at a hotel called BaliKana - loved it, the highlight of our trip. Janis and Made own and run the hotel, it has its own private beach, we had a simple room upstairs (last one available when we arrived)with a fan and cold water shower. We are in our 50's and used to 3 star but this place was so nice that we didn't find it difficult. Breakfast was provided and we enjoyed every minute of our 4 day stay.
We then chartered a boat back to Lombok, caught a plane back to Bali and started the next part of our holiday.
We upgraded at Gazebo and had a room facing the beach, then 3 days later moved to near the garden pool when the room became available, naturally this cost us a little more.
The staff at Gazebo are lovely, always willing to assist in any way they can and they make the hotel what it is.
We met some lovely people from Qld, NSW, South London plus a few others. Had some good meals at Bonzai on the beach, Kami Sama (Mama Putu makes the best Bubur Ayam, you have to ask her personally).
My husband rode one of the free bikes up the beach towards the Hyatt and bought fish 3 - 4 kg off the fishermen as they brought in the catch and handed them over to the chefs at Kami Sama to cook for us -the fish was fresh and well worth the 15,000 rp per kg.
We flew to JogJokarta and went to both Budhist and Hindu temples which were great, the tour company we had was not the best, we arrived at 6 am local time and were not due to fly back until 8.55 pm local time, this meant we had nothing to do for at least 5 hours before we flew back - better organisation is needed. If you are going to do one of these tours and they state "12 hour tour" make sure you confirm that the tour will last the full 12 hours and not be dumped off at a shopping mall or airport for many hours before they pick you up to take you to the airport.
We had a great holiday, suffered from the cold when we got home, my tan is still very obvious and I am still feeling as though I have only just come back.
Jo